


i feel numb in this kingdom

by thequeenofokay



Category: Quantico (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Post Episode: s01e11 Inside, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:22:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5738257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenofokay/pseuds/thequeenofokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I have work to do,’ Caleb is saying. ‘I’m not going to play minder for some amnesiac.’</p><p>Nimah laughs. Shelby can imagine her doubling over, looking up at Caleb incredulously. ‘<i>Some amnesiac</i>?’ she repeats. ‘Caleb, don’t pretend that you don’t just have a problem with this because of what she did to you.’</p><p> </p><p>// shelby tries to recover from the fbi command centre bombing. caleb isn't always helpful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i feel numb in this kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> \+ for the prompt "things you said that i wasn't meant to hear" but it got far, far away from me.
> 
> \+ first: i've read too many amnesia au fics lately. second: first time writing anything quantico so i really don't know if it's any good? but? first time for everything? third: i'm very tired so pls point out any mistakes to me.
> 
> \+ title from "numbers" by daughter.

 

 

There’s someone holding Shelby’s fingers, clinging to them, but she can’t really feel it. She can’t really feel anything. Just pain, flowing across her like she’s lying in the waves. There’s someone whispering by her ear—Caleb. It’s Caleb’s voice.

‘Please,’ he’s saying, and his voice is tight and shaking. ‘I _love_ you Shelby, and everything we did doesn’t matter. Please, I love you, you can’t—’

She wants to turn and look at him. She wants to say _I’m sorry, sorry, sorry_ and _I love you too_ and _didn’t we mess up?_

But she can’t. Even if she could move, his voice is fading and… gone.

 

*

 

She slides in and out of consciousness. She’s caught in a hazy state between pain and numbness, between waking and dreaming. Sometimes she can sense people nearby her, but mostly it is still. Finally, her eyes open.

She’s in a hospital bed, dozens of wires trailing from her to blinking monitors. She can see dusk light through the blinds.

She coughs. She feels like her body is going to fall apart.

And then there are doctors. They swarm round her, and if she had the strength, the thinks she’d try and bat them away. One of them is talking to her in a serious sort of voice, but she can’t focus properly and only catches words: _bombing_ , _comatose, serious condition, possible brain damage_.

She just nods.

‘Do you remember any of it?’ the doctor asks.

She stares. Her mind is filled with fog. ‘No,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing.’

 

*

 

It is four days of tests and questions for the doctors to establish the extent of the damage done to her in the bombing of the Command Centre. She can remember how to clean a gun, take a shot from two-hundred metres, track a target, and she remember that her parents are gone even if their faces are fuzzy to her. But there are gaps. She hasn’t even _heard_ of Quantico. Her memories of the people, the place, the experiences she’s had there and since are gone; only the skills, the _muscle memory_ remain.

It’s beyond frustrating.

Miranda Shaw comes to speak to her on the fifth day. Shelby feels like she _should_ remember the woman, but there’s a clinical sort of nothing.

She focuses as well as she can on the updates Miranda gives her. She’s been out months, and in that time Alex and Raina have gone undercover in search of the true perpetrators of the bombing, Simon is working out of DC, Claire Haas is still in a critical condition, and the bombing devastated the FBI—but it all means little to her. It’s all people she doesn’t remember and things she has no recollection of doing. ‘You’ll need a while to recover physically,’ Miranda tells her. ‘But you can get back into less strenuous work as soon as you feel ready.’ She gives Shelby a sympathetic look. ‘It might help with your memory issues.’

Shelby nods. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

 

*

 

Miranda sends two of her old classmates to pick her up from the hospital once the doctors let her go. Nimah and Caleb. Shelby feels horribly self-conscious standing in front of them in the long, loose dress that hides some of the damage done to her by the bombing—the scarring, the bandages still holding her together—but it does nothing to make her feel anything close to presentable. It doesn’t hide the damage done to every inch of her.

She feels like a mess.

Nimah’s giving her a sympathetic look, but her expression has a sort of strength, as if saying _it could have been worse, couldn’t it?_ She offers a hand to Shelby, helping her to the car.

She can feel Caleb’s eyes on her as she climbs awkwardly into the passenger seat. He looks at her in a way that is oddly filled with hurt that makes her feel infinitely worse than she did before.

On the drive Nimah hardly stops talking, seemingly determined not to allow a moment of uncomfortable silence to settle on the three of them. She asks Shelby a few questions on what she remembers, but mostly she just talks about everything she’s missed. Not the FBI business like Miranda had told her, but the mundane happenings of the world. It’s who won the super bowl, how she missed the new Star Wars movie and what the Kardashians have done this time.

She nods along, commenting in the appropriate places. Caleb, on the other hand, barely says a word, and anything he does say is a snarky comment to Nimah. Shelby feels as though he’s trying to pretend she’s not there.

‘We’re here,’ Nimah announces, pulling the car to a stop. They’ve arrived outside a townhouse, and the first thing she thinks as she struggles out the car is that it’s beautiful. The second thing is a hazy sense of recognition for the place.

‘Is this…?’ she begins.

‘Your house in New York,’ Nimah finishes for her. ‘We’ll be staying here with you until you’re adjusted again,’ she says. She turns to look at Shelby. ‘If that’s okay.’

Shelby nods, carefully hiding any reservations she might have about sharing a house with two people who know her but that she has no recollection of. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘It’s very kind of you.’

‘Take a look around,’ Nimah says. ‘It might help.’

She passes through the dining room, the living room, moves around the kitchen. She was rich, she remembers that much. Her hands trail across the worktops, searching for recognition. At the continuing foggy nothing, she gives up and sets about making herself a mug of tea. The door back out to the hallway is closed, but she can hear Nimah and Caleb on the other side.

‘I have work to do,’ Caleb is saying. ‘I’m not going to play minder for some amnesiac.’

Nimah laughs. Shelby can imagine her doubling over, looking up at Caleb incredulously. ‘ _Some amnesiac_?’ she repeats. ‘Caleb, don’t pretend that you don’t just have a problem with this because of what she did to you.’

‘So what if that’s it?’ Caleb asks. He sounds exasperated. ‘You know what she did. Do you expect me to forgive that?’

‘Of course not,’ she says. ‘But she doesn’t remember any of it. You’re trying to punish a woman who doesn’t exist at the moment.’

He sighs. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Fine, whatever, I’ll try and play nice.’

‘Good.’

 

*

 

Nimah cooks dinner. Shelby tries to help, mostly to keep her hands busy. Caleb sits in the next room on his laptop. He’s alternating between stoically not looking up and watching her carefully when he thinks she doesn’t see it.

It’s like he’s searching for something inside her, but she doesn’t know what.

‘Is he okay?’ she asks Nimah quietly.

Nimah shrugs, her mouth setting into a sympathetic grimace. ‘Don’t mind him,’ she says. ‘He just stressed. His mother was caught in the explosion too, and she’s still in hospital.’

‘Oh,’ Shelby says. ‘That’s terrible.’

Now Nimah’s giving Shelby that searching look, and she wants to ask _what did I do to him?_ but it doesn’t seem right. ‘Yes,’ Nimah agrees. ‘He’s had it rough lately. We all have.’ She gives Shelby’s arm a pat, comforting and unexpectedly gentle, and turns back to the vegetables she was chopping.

 

*

 

She spends a day shuffling around her home, looking through photographs and books in the hope that something will trigger the return of her memories. There’s nothing and, frustrated, she insists on going back to work in the hopes that something there will help.

Despite having no memory of learning the skills, they remain in her brain, untarnished. Miranda gives her analytical cases to go through.

She insists on getting back to physical training as soon as she can stand for more than ten minutes without being exhausted enough that she has to sit down for another half an hour to recover. Nimah supervises her while she jogs gently on the treadmill, turning the pace down every time Shelby tries to move it up.

When Nimah’s busy, the duty gets relegated to Caleb. He has that same vaguely irritated and avoidant approach to it as he does with everything that involves her.

He leans against the wall as she faces a practise target. She’s got an annoying feeling in the back of her head that she has to prove something to him. Which is stupid. She has nothing to prove to anyone, but she’s tired of his looks of disapproval, like she can never quite live up to what he expects of her.

She takes the shot. She’s not far off the bullseye, but the recoil shocks her, and she can’t help letting out a pained gasp at the jolt it sends through her body.

Caleb is next to her, his hands holding her arms carefully, and the raw concern for her is somehow more surprising than the gunshot had been.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

She glances down, nodding. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It was just—I’m not strong enough yet.’

His hands spring off her skin like he’s had an electric shock, and he looks at them as if he’s only just realised he was touching her. ‘Good,’ he says. There’s a moment as he takes a breath and seems to consider something before he says, slowly, ‘I can help, if you want.’

‘Sure,’ she says.

He lets out a little sigh like maybe he’d been hoping she’d say no. ‘Take your stance again,’ he says, and, with awkward hesitance he moves in close behind her so that they’re pressed together. One arm wraps around her waist, his hand splayed across her stomach, and his other against her arm.

She can feel a tightness in his breathing, but tries to ignore it, pretending to herself that there’s no way she could be causing it.

‘Just take the shot,’ he says, voice lower than she’d expected. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

She does. He holds her steady, and she leans back into him on instinct— _muscle memory_ —and immediately the hand on her stomach is tighter, his fingers curling in the fabric of her shirt.

The moment stretches. Her body is telling her to turn in his arms. Her mind stubbornly refuses, telling her that it would be too much.

He clears his throat. ‘Anyway,’ he says. ‘I should go. I have work to finish.’ He draws away from her slowly, like it’s an effort. ‘Sorry,’ he says, his fingers dragging up her arm, and he backs towards the door of the target range, almost running away from her.

She wishes she didn’t feel disappointed.

 

*

 

‘I’m going away for a week,’ he says.

He waits. She looks up from her laptop where she’s been going over information for a mission someone she’ll probably never meet is going to go on. She’s found that drowning herself in work so she doesn’t have to dwell on everything missing from her mind is the easiest way to stay sane.

‘Okay,’ she says. There’s a strange feeling in her gut, and she realises she’s going to miss him. He and Nimah stopped staying with her weeks ago, but she’s grown used to seeing him every day. ‘Where?’

He taps the side of his nose and smirks at her. He’s still withdrawn around her, always watching her carefully, but she thinks they might just be beginning to break into the territory of friends.

She knows they must have been more than that before. She wishes she remembered, doesn’t understand how she could ever forget.

‘Confidential,’ he teases, sliding into the seat next to her.

‘Of course.’ She nods. ‘Don’t get hurt, okay?’

It slips out, but he looks up at her in surprise. She must have said something wrong. ‘What?’ he asks.

‘Don’t get hurt,’ she repeats, confused.

‘Why would you care?’ There’s anger hidden deep in those words, beneath the casual tone.

‘Because I’m your friend.’ She moves forwards a little in her chair so that their knees touch. ‘Aren’t I?’

‘Oh, Shelby,’ he says, and the way he says _her name_ is something she can’t quite understand. ‘You always cared, didn’t you?’

She doesn’t know quite what to say. ‘Did you love her—me, I mean?’ she asks, because this is the only opening he’s going to give her. ‘Before the bombing.’

He doesn’t answer, just sighs. So she kisses him.

She feels a sudden rush of déjà vu, and of the _rightness_ of this. She slides forwards from her seat so that she’s almost perched in his lap. He tugs her close, clinging onto her, and this is the moment where for most people the metaphor of puzzle pieces falling into place, but all she can think of is a gun cocking.

‘No,’ he says. It’s just a breath at first, against her cheek, and then firmer. His hands move to her shoulders, and he pushes her back into her own seat. ‘Shelby, you can’t.’

‘What?’ she asks. She tries not to sound hurt. She shouldn’t. The her she can’t remember did something awful to him. It shouldn’t be a surprise to her that he’s hesitant.

‘Shelby,’ he repeats. ‘I can’t—I’m not going through this again. It was bad enough the first time round. For both of us.’

‘You loved her,’ she insists, and this time it’s no longer a question. ‘You did.’

He looks at her, so exhausted with her and _god_ is she tired with that look. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I love you.’

It’s all she can do to move past the way he says it and press on. ‘Then wasn’t it worth it?’

‘No,’ he says, and then, ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘Don’t you think this could be a second chance? Don’t you _want_ that?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he repeats firmly. ‘It’s too late.’

‘What did I do?’ she asks. She wants to stomp her foot in frustration like a child. ‘I don’t remember, Caleb.’

He shakes his head. ‘No, Shelby,’ he says. ‘Maybe one day you’ll remember.’ He almost laughs, and his hands rub her shoulders fondly. ‘You know, I really hope you don’t.’

‘Fine,’ she says, sharper than she intended. ‘What now, then?’

He presses a kiss to her jaw like he can’t help himself, and she bites down on her lip. ‘We’ll talk about it when I get back,’ he says.

 

*

 

He isn’t away just a week. It stretches into two, then three, and then Miranda is calling Shelby into her office and giving her an assignment. It’s simple, with no risk of danger, but it’s halfway across the country.

She won’t be there when he gets back. She refuses to contemplate the idea that something has gone wrong for him. Someone would have told her.

She doesn’t know any of the other handful of agents on the mission with her, but she does her best to make small talk on the way out. They aren’t like people who knew her before who expect something from her; yet, they don’t understand her like Miranda or Nimah or Caleb.

Miranda had been right. It’s an easy mission, but she’ll take anything that gets her in the field again. They’re set up in hotel rooms when they’re done for the night, before they’re to be flown back to New York.

_(Caleb’s sleeping next to her in a hotel room like this, and she’s not sure where she ended up leaving her clothes—if it was up here or down in the store room—but she knows she’s never felt quite so satisfied.)_

It’s the middle of the night when a number she doesn’t recognise calls her, but she answers anyway. Which is probably terrible FBI etiquette.

‘Shelby.’ She almost drops the phone as she hears Caleb’s voice on the other end. ‘You’re there.’

‘Yes,’ she replies slowly. ‘I’m here—Caleb, what’s happening?’

‘Nothing,’ he says, but she can hear the strain in his voice. ‘Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to speak to you. Is that okay?’

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘What is it?’

‘I was wrong,’ he says, and hisses through his teeth.

‘Are you okay?’ she cuts in, before he can say anything else. ‘You sound hurt.’

‘Of course I’m okay,’ he says, and it sounds like a promise. ‘You always believed in me, Shelby. Remember when—’ He breaks off to let out a raspy laugh. ‘Of course you don’t. But I’m fine. I’ll come back.’

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Keep going.’

He takes a shaky breath. ‘I was wrong,’ he says again. ‘I said it was too late for a second chance. I was wrong Shelby—I’m sorry, I—’ He breaks off to take another gasping breath. ‘I’m sorry. I kept expecting it to be like it was last time, but you don’t even _remember_ that.’

‘Caleb,’ she whispers. ‘I hurt you. I know that much.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he murmurs. ‘Love you.’

‘Caleb,’ she says, insistent now. He sounds like he’s fading.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ he says. Just a whisper. ‘I will. I love you, Shelby.’

The line goes dead, and she stares at her phone.

 

*

 

They’ve lost contact with the unit Caleb was working with, Miranda tells her when she arrives back. He’ll be okay, though, she says.

He’s a good agent. Just have a little faith.

 

*

 

There’s an evac team going out, Miranda says. He’ll be back soon.

 

*

 

He wants to see you, Miranda says. He was knocked about a bit, but it could have been worse. Much worse.

She looks at Shelby, the number one example of “much worse”.

 

*

 

He’s asleep in an FBI facility’s hospital bed. He doesn’t wake up when she slides her hand into his. It feels oddly tender. She’s not sure if they do tender. No one has ever told her. She’s not sure what she does, at all.

She knows she loves him. It’s confusing, because she hasn’t fallen in love with him yet, and she doesn’t remember falling in love with him, but she does and she did, all at once.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://theshelbywyatt.tumblr.com) (send me a prompt if ur feelin it.)


End file.
